Now they know what it feels like to be hunted!

Hunting claims to be all about tradition and this is never truer than on Boxing Day.

Their big day will be slavishly and sympathetically covered by most press and media outlets exactly as the Countryside Alliance wants it to be. They will claim there are hundreds of thousands of converted members of the public turning up at hunt meets to show their support for this poor, downtrodden minority. They will say hunting is more popular than ever despite claiming last decade that over a million people would be supporting hunts at this time of year. Somebody was making figures up yet the media continually accept them.

Point this out to the media that they might want to do more than reprint a press release verbatim and they get very defensive. Suggest that they do some leg work and maybe watch a hunt anonymously or covertly and see what really happens with ‘trail hunting’ and they get cold feet. But not literally.

Those hunts that do go out this year will be doing more than following a sock dangled in front of the cameras but we’ll bet you won’t see any more than that. Barring natural or other disasters on the day, the red coated bullies will once again be assured of some non threatening, stage managed publicity to continue the drip feed message that hunting is still here but you don’t really need to look under the surface, just let them get on with their bloodlust out of sight of the cameras and your Boxing Day news bulletin.